“Somebody get these traitors out of here before I kill them again and get some damn mug shots. I want to send them to HQ to see if they’re listed as spies. I just can’t believe that Dan Li is in here. Fricking turncoat!”
He continued toward the rear of the whale-ship and looked back.
“Here’s how they did that horrible empty suit trick. It’s an airlock hatch into a small flood bay. Li in his Exosuit probably entered the flood bay from the ocean, took it off in the airlock and then dumped it back into the ocean as he stayed safely dry inside. That bastard!”
Looking around on a nearby shelf, he grabbed a thick red marker and held it up for us to see. “And here’s the grease pencil he used to mark his suit and Edward’s SeaPod. Must have used that camouflaged Chinese ADS in the corner for that venture. With this whale-ship and that suit he could lead them all around the station without being seen but he never expected that the monopole would foul his plans.”
From outside the whale-ship Williams and I watched the hall of horrors unfold before our eyes. We had discovered the boogey man’s lair complete with incriminating evidence supporting their illicit activities. There was no Davy Jones Locker mystery involved just ordinary criminal espionage and now we had the smoking gun.
As he swiveled around to leave, still hunched over, he noticed a thick notebook, grabbed it, and brought it out with him. Across its cover were Chinese glyphs meaning nothing to him or us.
“Where’s Yung Ching. This is probably their logbook. I need an interpreter,” he said, scanning the bay.
“Down at the end of the bay moving the bodies. Took Briscoe with him to move them but he seemed not to mind,” I said. “Ching said that he was going for a camera after that.”
Bowman sighed and squatted by the open cockpit, put his elbows on his knees, and looked down resting his head between his hands.
“You okay, Dr. Bowman?” Williams asked.
He glanced up at her and went back into his position.
“Yeah I’m fine, Lieutenant. Just trying to absorb everything that’s happened here and what it all means to our mission.”
“Well I hate bring up the elephant in the room, Dave,” I said, “but that ship is just a small sub like our SeaPods. It probably has only a ten- or twenty-mile range. That means there is a larger mother ship somewhere around us within twenty miles waiting for its return. Either a big sub or surface vessel.”
“Oh dear God, you’re right, Matt,” he said. “I have to get this information to Point Mugu. When Ching returns with the camera have him bring the shots to my office ASAP.”
As he left the bay, Williams and I went back and found Briscoe arranging the bodies on the floor of the bay like a criminal line-up. After opening their eyes with his thumb and forefinger, he backed off and dusted his hands.
“There. That should give some damn good mug shots,” he said. Then he looked back past us and yelled, “Where’s Ching? I need that camera.”
From the back of the bay by the ladder came a winded voice.
“I’m coming. I’m coming. Be right there.”
He raced up to us and started to take a photograph for the line-up, standing over and straddling Li’s body.
“Gimme that camera, Yung,” said the Chief, reaching out. “I’m taller. I’ll get a better angle.”
He relinquished the camera as I noticed tears forming in his eyes.
“Hey Yung,” I said grabbing his shoulder pulling him closer, “I know you lost a friend and I’m truly sorry for your loss but he was not who you thought he was.”
“But seeing him again reminds me that he was such a good man and loyal friend to me. Everybody loved him,” he sniffled. “I just can’t imagine him doing this to us.”
I knew his pain, having lost my brother and parents when I was younger. No matter what they had done, the memories always seemed to fall on the softer times of their lives. I hugged him tighter as he broke down and began to weep uncontrollably on my shoulder.
“Hey now,” the Chief said putting a hand on his back. “He’s in a better place and probably at peace with his wayward ways. I never met him but I feel we’re all better off without his mischief.”
Yung sniffled again, wiped his eyes, and looked back at Briscoe.
“I guess you’re right, Mr. Briscoe, but it’s still hard to lose a buddy like that especially when you realize that he was really your enemy. I was duped so badly; I feel like a fool.”
“Hey Yung, let’s take these photos to Bowman. He’s waiting for them,” Williams said, sliding her arm around his back pushing him toward the ladder.
Williams, Ching, Briscoe, and I entered the vault noticing the open Z-room hatch door showing through to Bowman’s office.
Approaching it, I knocked.
“We have the mug shots.”
“Come,” he said.
As I opened his door, he looked up from a folder.
“Close and lock all the doors behind you including the vault’s.”
Williams turned back, rushed through the Z-room into the vault, and pulled the heavy door until it locked. Then as I watched, she closed the Z-room hatch door and pulled the locking lever. Finally, she reentered his office and closed the door behind her.
“Done sir. We’re secure,” she said, out of breath. “What now?”
“Good. I see you have the camera, Mr. Briscoe. May I have it please?”
The Chief handed him the camera and waited.
“Sit down please; you’re all making me nervous. This may take a while.”
We sat as he attached a USB cable to the camera. Then out the corner of my eye, I saw Ching checking out the thick leather-covered notebook lying near him on the desk.
“Mind if I look at that book, Dr. Bowman?” Ching asked. “Those glyphs on the cover are Mandarin. It says Log Book. Is that from the whale-ship?”
“Oh yes, Lt. Ching. I want you to examine that book and summarize it for me. Found it on a shelf in that ship. Thought it might be a log. Help yourself.”
Bowman resumed cabling the camera to his computer as Ching lifted the tome from the desk, opened the cover, and began flipping through pages.
Williams leaned over and glanced at the pages.
“Well what does it say, Yung? Anything interesting?”
“Hmm, wait a minute. It’s pretty vague. No names so far. They are documenting their recent dives around the ‘dome’ as they call it.”
Now intrigued by his translation I also leaned over into the book as if I could read anything. All I saw were pages filled with Chinese symbols and a few hand-drawn sketches.
Suddenly he gasped, laid the book on his lap, and began to weep again.
Bowman jerked up from his computer.
“What’s wrong, Yung? What did you find?”
Ching pulled up the book and pointed into a page. In between sobs, he gazed on the strange glyphs.
“This entry dated June 11th, 2016 tells of a venture around the dome. It says, ‘We finally captured a diver in his strange suit. He was alone with another diver tending to sensor probes some distance away. Brought him in, marked his suit with YOU LOSE, and dumped it back through the water lock onto the ocean floor.’”
He put his hands to his eyes wiped them and with a wavering voice admitted:
“That other diver was me. But, I never saw them. The symbols I saw on his suit were a wrong dialect of Mandarin for me to understand probably northern. Seemed more like ancient glyphs.”
He sniffled and referred back to the log.
“It continues, ‘Diver claimed he didn’t know Mandarin only English and said his name was Fook Yoo nothing else. Will take him back to mother ship and question him further. Must leave the dome location now. Instruments acting very strange.’”
Ching raised his reddened eyes and glared at Bowman.